Come on up and see my etchings!

Once upon a very long time ago, I used to love to draw. I recently came upon my portfolio from high school and college, and was so excited at what I found. These are pictures I drew when I was in high school, at home in my spare time, and for a Life Drawing class I took in college. In days of old, I had planned to become an art therapist or art teacher.

Click on any of these to see a bigger version.

I drew the picture below while in high school. Our art teacher Mrs. Baughman chose several of her students to draw village landmarks, and I was chosen to draw the Wertz Hospital, which is now a private residence. These pictures were made into folders that were sold to raise money. Whatever for, I don't remember.

It was fun to see my work in print! A few years ago I went on a holidy home tour and actually toured this home. I was so excited to see my drawing framed in the front entrance!

Here is one of the best pictures I have ever drawn. It was done from a photograph of my brother, Rich.


The one below is a picture of my daughter's father Rick, also from a photograph. I drew this sometime after college.


The next picture was probably drawn while on break from college. It's a picture of a church friend named Mike. There are a lot of mistakes in this picture, but I recognized who it was right away.


We were encouraged in our classes to draw as often as possible. I was also taught to draw quickly in Life Drawing. Here is a sleepy subject, my brother's dog Woody.


My college roommate thought it would be fun to buy a guinea pig and keep it in our dorm room. She didn't realize she bought a pregnant one. We named the mother Mabel Margarita and the baby Jerry Vodka. You can tell where our brains were back in the day. The second pic is of the mommy nursing the baby.


My brother was always lying on the couch watching TV. Always. He was an easy target. Here he is lying on his belly.


And another of him reclining on the couch.


During my drawing class, we learned some other medias too such as watercolor. I drew my friend Cheryl in class one day. These are not masterpieces and we had to complete these in about 10 minutes.


I also did a watercolor of our instructor, Mr. Devlin.


The class traveled to the zoo for one fun class. We had to draw the animals very quickly, partly as an exercise in capturing the essence of the animal, and partly because the little stinkers move! We had to draw each subject in under a minute. The first is an orangutan, then there is a grizzly bear and a polar bear, and the last is a gnu.


As part of our life drawing class, we drew nude people. Yes, people actually stood butt nekkid there on a little stage and we had to draw them. That was quite unnerving at first, but I got used to it. I never did get over the embarrassment of drawing the men though because I was too shy to look at THAT part of the male models and their legs were always drawn rather foreshortened as I didn't want to keep looking in that "area." I'd probably stare quite a bit these days.

So be FOREWARNED that some of these next pics are people without clothes, but I do not in any way think they are inappropriate for this blog. A third grader would see something more explicit in an art museum.

We had to do 20-60 second sketches to practice drawing form. I really liked the way this one turned out.


Here is another 60 second sketch. It reminds me of Mattisse.


We were allowed to progress to 20 minute drawings. This next was supposed to be in a somewhat cubist manner. It only partially succeeded.


I liked this 20 minute drawing also.


And the following was my favorite from my Life Drawing class. It was from a really difficult perspective because of the angle and her reclining position. A friend of mine saw this one and titled it "Ready, Willing and Able." Hmmph! By the way, I got an A in that class.

I hope you enjoyed my little gallery. When I saw these for the first time in a decade or two, I yearned to have that part of me back again. Whatever happened to my joy of drawing? I really want to connect with the artist inside of me again.

Here's to finding that lost part of yourself that you once loved while younger!